


Human Toll

by bomberqueen17



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, September 11 Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets home from a deployment and Nancy turns on the news, and everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Toll

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually the first snippet I wrote in the SG:A fandom. I read a few character bio pages and realized that September 11, 2001 would've been pretty recent history for a military officer in 2004; I know it changed a lot of things for my family (I have several family members in the Army).  
> Sorry, it's probably self-indulgent, but it just sort of came to me that he wasn't going to be in any way untouched by this. And in my personal headcanon, John and Nancy probably would've been able to stay married except for what happened to the US armed forces after those attacks. I know firsthand the profound effect it had on the direction of a lot of people's careers and lives.

 

 

Nancy had already taken off through Wednesday, in anticipation of his arrival. He was supposed to get there Friday but she knew by experience now that their travel itineraries, well, frankly sucked, and so she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t get a call until Monday. 

He was exhausted, though he was pretending not to be; she ran to him the way she knew he liked, like something out of the movies, and let him spin her around and dip her backward to kiss her. His mouth tasted like black coffee and his face was like sandpaper, but his body was warm and solid. She slid her hands into his hair and kissed him back, and laughed as his hands dropped to her ass. He grinned wickedly, gave her a good squeeze, and then pulled back to rest his forehead against hers. 

“Hey,” he said. He smelled of stale sweat and someone else’s cigarette smoke, and his face was puffy, dark circles under his eyes. 

“Hey,” she answered. “Good trip?”

“They had us sleep on cardboard on the floor of a C-130,” he answered. “It was peachy.”

“You’re just pissed cuz you weren’t flying it,” Nancy said with a laugh, though she did give him a sympathetic face. “Let’s get you home.” 

“I’d like that,” he said, and his shoulders slumped. She kissed his forehead and put her arm around his waist, pulling him toward the exit.

He fell asleep in the car. He never did that. He hadn’t even offered to drive. He didn’t stir the whole way, didn’t react to her changes in speed, even when she slowed to turn into the driveway. Nothing, no reaction. Nancy pulled carefully into her parking space and shut the car off, watching him. His head was tilted against the window, mouth slightly open. 

He always came back exhausted. Sometimes he came back damaged. The times with crutches and bandages were bad enough, but there had been a couple where he’d come back without bandages but with night terrors or worse. Sometimes he was injured in ways she didn’t know about. Last year he’d come home from a three-month rotation somewhere he’d never told her about, and hadn’t slept more than two hours at a stretch for the first week he’d been home. She’d kept finding him sitting on the couch staring at the TV. Sometimes it was on, but usually it was off. Sometimes he wouldn’t hear her when she said his name.

This time he’d been in consistent contact and had regularly complained of being bored. He’d complained that he’d been promoted out of “the good stuff” and was doing too much paperwork now. She’d carefully tucked away her gratitude for it. A bored John Sheppard was dangerous, but less so than a busy one. The fingernails on his left hand had only just been growing back right when she’d sent him off this time; he’d never talked about it but when he was half-asleep she’d gotten him to admit that someone had pulled them out. She still didn’t know what he’d been doing to have that happen, but he’d clammed up once he woke up and she knew she wasn’t gonna get any more out of him about it.

“John,” she said. He didn’t respond, so she reached out carefully. She knew he sometimes woke up swinging, so she didn’t want to startle him. She poked his hand. Fingernails were intact, if bitten short. “John.”

His eyelids pinched and he grimaced. “Mm,” he said.

“John. We’re home. I’m not carrying you up the stairs. I’ll get your duffel though.”

He blinked blearily at her. “Nancy,” he said. “Whoa. How long was I out?”

“Your ass hit the seat, your head hit the window, and you were gone before I was out of the parking lot,” she said. “It’s been like an hour.” 

He rubbed the back of his hand over his face, rasping in stubble. “Did I drool?”

She laughed, and had to lean over and kiss him. “No, sweetie,” she said. 

He got unsteadily out of the car, woozy, but insisted on hefting his own duffel bag. She put her arm around him and they walked slowly together up the stairs to the door. She had meant to offer him a beer, and she’d had dinner all ready to reheat, but instead she just steered him down the hall, flipped back the covers, helped him strip off his uniform, and bundled him into the bed. 

He slept like a dead man for twelve hours. She tried to wake him enough for sex in the morning, but he didn’t even stir, and she gave up and got out of bed. It was only 8, and he had a time zone change to deal with. She made coffee and curled up in front of the TV with the newspaper. She never had time to read the news anymore, and it felt like a wonderful luxury to sit in her bathrobe and spread the paper out over the coffee table.

The TV flashed something, a news update, and she glanced up. A plane accident? She stared, reading the ticker. A plane had hit a skyscraper in New York. She shook her head, appalled, and looked back down to the newspaper. But a few minutes later the TV was interrupted by a bulletin. A second plane had hit another skyscraper. 

Nancy set down her coffee cup, staring. A second plane. Then it wasn’t just a crazy accident. She stood up and went to the bedroom. 

“John,” she said. “John, wake up.” 

He sighed deeply. “Mmm,” he said, turning over. He must have been waking up anyway. She moved over to the bed. 

“John,” she said again, “you have to come see this. I think there’s about to be a war.” 

He pried his eyes open and stared at her. “What?”

“Planes have hit both towers of the World Trade Center in New York,” she said. 

He sat up, hair wild and eyes staring. “Fuck. What?”

“Come here,” she said, and he followed her out of the bedroom, staggering a little, rumpled and bleary. She pulled him down onto the couch and handed him her coffee cup, and he drank it absently, staring at the screen. It was showing a live feed now. A third plane had hit the Pentagon. 

“Don’t we have anyone in the air?” he asked, despairing, then: “Oh _crap_. Where’s my phone?”

“I put it on the charger,” Nancy said, and went to get it. _Anyone in the air._ Of course. 

She came back into the room and saw John’s shocked white face first as he reacted, yellow light washing across his face. She stood beside the couch and stared at the television, at the billowing smoke visible there. “What happened?”

“It fell,” he said, his voice hollow and shocked. “The tower. It collapsed. All those people—“

“Oh my God,” she said, and stepped closer to him. He put his arm around her numbly, and they stood together, staring at the television, John holding Nancy’s empty coffee cup, and Nancy clutching John’s phone, for a long time.

When the second tower fell, Nancy burst into tears and sat down. “Oh God,” she sobbed. “Who did this? Why did this happen? What is this?”

“I don’t know,” John said. “I don’t— I don’t know.” He sat beside her and took her into his arms. “I don’t know.”

“All those firefighters went in there,” she sobbed. “All those people were trapped. All— oh God— oh God, John!”

He pulled her closer, pressing her face against his shoulder, and she let herself sob. He shivered a couple of times, still staring at the television. “I don’t understand,” she sobbed, but she knew now she was just playing the part. There were a lot of people who hated the US. It wasn’t even the first time they’d tried it with that particular building. There were an awful lot of people who’d stop at nothing.

And she’d lose John to it. There’d be a war. He’d go. And that was that. She knew she’d lose him, one way or another. She’d always known. 

His phone began to ring, still clutched in her hand, and she pulled slowly away and stared at it. _I’m going to lose him_ , she thought, looking at it, then looked up at his face. His face was grim, and as she let him take the phone from her hand, it struck her that he knew it too: she was going to lose him to this.

 

 


End file.
